Geek+ Receives $60 Million Series B Investment Led by Warburg Pincus

Upload time：2017-07-13 Source：

Beijing, July 13,
2017 – Geek+ (www.geekplus.com.cn), a leading robot company in China, today announced it has received
US$60 million in Series B financing. This new round of financing is led by an
affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm focused on
growth investing, and participated by existing shareholders including Volcanics
Venture. This is the largest single round of fundraising in the logistics robot
industry globally to date.

Geek+ has delivered the largest numbers of logistics robots among its
peers in China. The company’s customers
include e-commerce platforms, third-party logistics providers, express delivery
companies, offline retailers and manufacturers of apparels, pharmaceuticals,
automobiles and electronics products. Geek+ has also established strategic
partnerships with a number of key customers to co-develop customized AI and robotic
solutions across different industries and applications.

Mr. Yong Zheng, Founder and CEO of Geek+, said: “This round of financing
will help us upgrade our business in three aspects. Firstly, we will accelerate
the upgrading of our logistics robotics products and expand product offerings
to cover more applications. Secondly, we will accelerate our geographical
expansion and industry coverage to provide our one-stop intelligent logistics system
and operation solutions to more customers. Thirdly, we will start exploring
overseas markets through multiple channels.”

As a leading player of logistics robotics technologies, Geek+ has significant
advantages in technology capability, product performance and market share compared
to industry peers. To date, Geek+ has delivered nearly 1,000 units of robots in
warehouses for over 20 customers including Tmall, VIPShop and Suning.

Geek+ is the largest logistics robot company in China. It also operates the
single largest robot warehouse in China with the most number of robots in
operation and the highest processing volume. The company has successfully supported
its e-commerce customers seamlessly complete their warehouse operations during major
e-commerce promotion campaigns such as “November 11th Singles’ Day” and
“June 18th Shopping Day” in China. Geek+ expects to finish deliveries
of 2,000 robot units by end of 2017.

“Our intelligent logistics robotic solutions have great flexibility and
scalability. They help customers achieve agility in logistics and mitigate
investment risks by quickly responding to fluctuating order volume, often
caused by constantly changing market environment. With the explosive growth of
customer demand for logistics robots, Geek+ will continue to work closely with
our business partners to drive the application of AI technologies across the
whole logistics value chain,” added Mr. Zheng.

The institutional investors of Geek+ will remain as financial investors
after this round of financing. The strong capital support will further enable Geek+
to provide professional, stable and high-quality services as an independent
service provider.

“The use of AI solutions and logistics robots has clear advantages in cost,
efficiency and flexibility over manual warehouse management and other
automation technologies. Geek+’s team has industry-leading technological
capability and a deep understanding of logistics operation. We will leverage
our experience and resources in the logistics and technology sectors to support
Geek+’s business expansion, and help build Geek+ into a global leader in artificial
intelligence,” added Mr. Zhang.

Warburg Pincus is a global private equity firm focused on growth
investing. Since 1994, the firm has invested more than $7 billion in nearly 100
companies in China. The investment in Geek+ is Warburg Pincus’ first investment
in the AI sector in China. Warburg Pincus is one of the most experienced
investors in China's logistics industry, and its current portfolio companies include
ZTO Express, ANE Logistics, Yunniao Technology and ESR Group in China. Machine
learning and AI have been a key recent focus of the Warburg Pincus’ technology
practice. The firm has invested in
mobile endpoint security service provider Zimperium, leading speech recognition
and transcription provider Nuance, compensation data vendor Payscale, student
analytics provider Civitas and computer vision company Trax.